Which Perceptions Do Primary School Children Have about Programming?

It is generally accepted that children have their own understanding of how the world works. Teachers need to take their ideas and knowledge into account in the learning process. While there exists a lot of research on children's perceptions of science concepts, little is known about their perceptions of programming. Since the topic is now becoming more and more relevant in the primary school context, our study aims to provide insights into children's ideas and knowledge about programming. For this purpose, we conducted and filmed seven group discussions with a total of 61 third- and fourth-grade students (age 8-11). The videos were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings show that the students associate actions as well as programmable devices with the term programming. Furthermore, we have found out that boys and girls have very similar ideas about it.